


The Shape of Things to Come

by Aja



Category: Prince of Tennis
Genre: Christmas, Holiday, M/M, Tennis, tenipuri, tezuryo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-18
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 07:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aja/pseuds/Aja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Kish, with love and thanks for all the love and enthusiasm she pours out to us every day.  Happy birthday. ♥</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Shape of Things to Come

**Author's Note:**

> For Kish, with love and thanks for all the love and enthusiasm she pours out to us every day. Happy birthday. ♥

Kunimitsu's list of Christmas gifts is always the same length every year: presents for his family, his teachers, childhood friends (Atobe falls into this category as an old friend of the family, which Kunimitsu often thinks was a deliberate calculation on Atobe's part) and the small group of friends he has known since entering Seigaku. There are rarely additions to the list.

For Christmas this year, the list is longer by one:

The name at the bottom has been bothering him for weeks. The fact that it has been bothering him is bothering him as well. He has debated whether he should worry so much about something that is probably relatively unimportant. They don't get gifts for one another �" Kunimitsu has known better since the day of the Fudomine tournament three years ago, when the rest of Seigaku went to sign the patch over Echizen's eye, and he had shot Kunimitsu a look then that had told him plainly that any attempt to approach him with a sharpie would be met with violence. Echizen had looked at him then, before their first tennis match, with mostly disinterest. Kunimitsu remembers even the moment when that expression changed forever �" the first ace he scored on Echizen, whizzing past him and widening his eyes into shocked pools of hope. It's partially because of the tremulous gratitude in Echizen's eyes whenever they rest on Kunimitsu that he has never bothered with gift-giving: he has never _needed_ to present Echizen with anything more than tennis to put that look there.

Kunimitsu doesn't see that this year should be any different�"except for the fact that it is. They have won Nationals together for a second year, playing singles one and two; they both know that the ranking is irrelevant by now. It will be Echizen's last year playing tennis for Seigaku; he should have gone pro at least a season ago, and he won't wait now. Kunimitsu has never asked him why he waited to begin with, which is fair enough, he thinks. Echizen, after all, has never asked him whether he is going pro at the end of the year. He doesn't know if they don't ask each other questions because they trust they already know the answers, or because they are afraid of what the answers are.

Kunimitsu is not afraid of his future. He is not afraid at the thought of leaving Seigaku, or leaving his family, or even leaving Japan. Nor is he afraid of Echizen's future.

There are moments, however, when he thinks of the two of them in each other's future, and it's then that he feels terrified by the wide-openness, the vast expanse of it all, and the prospect of being beside Echizen �" Echizen of all people �" while the world slowly turns in their direction.

A present, then. Something to make this final, the passage of time and the end of the part of their careers they have traveled together. Kunimitsu will never invite himself along on a path that is wholly Echizen's, and he will never expect Echizen to follow his. There is no sure guarantor of his own success, and there will be no telling how far and how fast Echizen will climb.

A gift is necessary on such occasions, he thinks. A gift to mark the end of the unforgettable, to send him off into the future with some symbol of the things Kunimitsu hopes he has learned while he has been in Japan.

The problem, of course, is that there is no gift on earth that can properly represent _this_.

  


~~~~~~

  
It is three days before Christmas, and Kunimitsu makes the mistake of agreeing to go with Fuji after practice to buy new wristbands. Fuji has his eye on an embarrassingly pink variety sold only in dainty mall boutiques. He neglects to mention this until Kunimitsu finds himself surrounded by a dazzle of Christmas lights, sleigh bells blaring in his ears, and charity Santas accosting him for donations every ten meters.

Fuji takes it all in and beams. "I just remembered," he says blithely, "I still have last-minute gifts to buy. Isn't it lucky we came here, Tezuka?"

Five minutes later he has dragged Kunimitsu into the nearest electronics store while he tracks down gifts for Yuuta, and Kunimitsu finds himself staring at something called a Wii, surrounded by video games.

Echizen. _Echizen would like this,_ he thinks, and gazes at the pyramid of video games around the console. He has never seen Echizen play a video game. He wonders where he picked up such obscure knowledge about one of his players. He wonders what other things he knows about Echizen, until he spots Fuji watching him out of the corner of his eye and stops staring at the video games. He stands at the entrance facing the mall shoppers until Fuji is ready to leave.

Fuji's next stop is the pet shop to buy fish food for Oishi. Kunimitsu likes cats, so he looks at the kittens and the toys until he spots a white cat with mottled tips that remind him of Echizen's cat. Echizen might like a cat carrier for his birthday. It will be useful to him later on when he is ready to travel overseas. Kunimitsu can't see Echizen leaving his cat behind when he tours. Fuji buys a large black fish that may or may not have teeth and carries it nonchalantly in one hand as they walk. Kunimitsu doesn't ask who it is for. He doesn't answer when Fuji asks him if he is going to buy anything for anyone.

They stop off the sporting equipment store on their way out of the mall, _after_ Fuji has bought the wristbands they came for. Kunimitsu examines rackets (Prince, he thinks, bright red, but still the perfect size�"Echizen hasn't grown enough in stature to need to switch lengths, though he has made up for it in all other possible areas) and glances over a Fila section full of baseball caps and jerseys. He stops looking when he gets to the tiny shorts that hang on the wall beside the sweat suits. He doesn't like to think of Echizen wearing those. They are too tiny, made for a body that should be bigger, a frame that should be larger than it is despite legs that flow like waterfalls onto the court, endless and powerful.

Echizen is turning sixteen. He hasn't begun to shave; he still hides his hair wherever he goes and still looks the way he did the first time he played Kunimitsu. There are differences, though. He stands straighter. Runs more laps in a set. Occasionally gets a look of intensity in his eyes that previously only tennis could put there.

He wins more and more matches against Kunimitsu.

Fuji buys a case of tennis balls, more than a hundred, more than he could possibly need. "They're for Eiji," Fuji explains gleefully. Kunimitsu doesn't ask him to elaborate. He takes the fish from Fuji when Fuji runs out of hands, and asks himself what he would want Echizen to get him as a gift. When surrounded by rows of tennis rackets, the answer is obvious. He laughs, and Fuji sends him a blinding smile. "So, Tezuka," he says. "Did you pick out something special?"

"You're getting gloves," Kunimitsu tells him.

  


~~~~~~

  
The 24th dawns bright and bleak and cold. Kunimitsu waits til after he imagines the family has had breakfast before dropping by Echizen's house. Still, Echizen's mother has to call him out of bed, and Echizen wanders down in a pair of baggy sweats and a cut-off t-shirt. The sleep is still in his eyes (muzzy and dark), in his face (pristine and pale), in his expression �" confused and groggy. He pouts at Kunimitsu for a moment, then glances at the clock and sighs. When he turns back to Kunimitsu, however, his eyes are bright and he is smirking.

"Get dressed and let's warm up," Kunimitsu tells him. "Wear layers."

Echizen nods and heads passively upstairs. Echizen's mother looks at Kunimitsu and remarks placidly, "I wish he followed my directions that well." Kunimitsu doesn't respond because he has never known what to say when someone points out how differently Echizen behaves around him than every other person he has ever met. He feels incredibly awkward, but she relaxes and smiles at him. "You're very important to him. His father and I are glad he will still have you in his life after you've gone pro together."

The word "together" lodges in Kunimitsu's throat and he says after a moment, "There's a good chance that Echizen will wind up playing in closed-circuit tours more quickly than I will, depending on how fast he rises in rank."

Echizen's mother tilts her head and appraises him. "Ryoma would never take orders from a second-tier," she says calmly.

Something nameless and sharp twinges in Kunimitsu's chest, then. Echizen's mother smiles again and offers him tea. When she leaves the room she pats his arm in passing, and he is left with feeling that something significant has taken place, even though he has no idea what.

Echizen returns wearing fitted Fila all over, and a layer of warm fleece over a t-shirt tucked beneath his jersey. His hair, which previously had hung sleep-tousled and wiry over his eyes, has been swept under his cap as always. Kunimitsu holds the door for him and notes that Echizen doesn't question their destination, just comes with as if they do this sort of thing all the time. Kunimitsu reflects that perhaps in their own way, in practice after practice, they do.

Echizen is uncharacteristically talkative on the train ride. Normally he would be silent and sulky, but after a few moments he turns to Kunimitsu and says peremptorily, "I'm sixteen today."

"I know," Kunimitsu says, sizing him up.

"I got one of those Wii things," Echizen says. "Momo-senpai gave me a bunch of games to go with it."

"Ah," says Kunimitsu, suddenly very glad he didn't go with that option at the mall.

Echizen wrinkles his nose. "Like I'm going to have time to play anything else after this," he says. He looks at Kunimitsu. "Buchou, do you play video games?"

"I don't," Kunimitsu responds, watching the way Echizen's eyebrows shift beneath his cap, the way he fiddles with the sleeve of his jacket as if he is nervous.

"One time Inui-senpai wanted to know all the stats of my game scores for his data," Echizen says. "It was creepy."

"Inui sometimes collects data that has nothing to do with tennis," Kunimitsu responds.

Echizen blinks. "How useful can it be, if it's got nothing to do with tennis?" he says. Kunimitsu looks at him without replying. He doesn't need to; Echizen smirks and stares out the window, looking satisfied.

The court near Haruno University is desolate and deserted. There is a space heater under the trestle and Kunimitsu has brought a net since the one on the court has been removed for winter. He digs it out while Echizen unearths a bag of tennis balls.

"You planned ahead," says Echizen, sounding pleased as he rolls the balls between his palms over the space heater. "I've never played with heated balls before."

"They'll bounce higher on the clay for a while. We'll have to change them out every few games or so."

"Right."

Kunimitsu focuses on unrolling the net and not on Echizen's small figure across the court; at least he manages not to until Echizen stands and shrugs off his jersey, the muscles of his forearms and calves shaping themselves to his clothing. Echizen is sixteen, Kunimitsu thinks. He is old enough now �" old enough to take on the world without flinching. It shows all over, in the confidence in his body, the way he stands, the way he has accepted his future with no second thoughts.

They are both old enough now, Kunimitsu thinks.

Kunimitsu has brought breakfast in the form of bananas and energy bars; the two of them eat silently, Echizen occasionally looking up at Kunimitsu through the shade of his cap. There is a cloud cover over Tokyo this morning that makes the wind seem colder; they stand a bit too close to the heater and each other to draw warmth, but Kunimitsu doesn't feel uncomfortable. He wonders how much taller he is than Ryoma now. The gap has shortened quite a bit, but Echizen still has to tilt his head to look into his face.

"Hey, Buchou," says Echizen, his mouth partially full of banana. "How long do you think they've been working on that building?"

Kunimitsu follows his gaze and realizes he is referring to the construction site across the street. "At least three years," he says, smiling before he realizes he is doing it. They are both more familiar with this place than they should be for the number of times they have actually played here.

"It must be something special if it's taking them that long to build it," Echizen says.

"Perhaps when you return to Japan, it will be complete," Kunimitsu says carefully. Echizen looks at him sharply then, because this is as the most direct Kunimitsu has ever been with him about his plans for going pro.

"Yeah," he answers. "Whenever that is." He pauses. "When we come back we can both go see it together."

"Perhaps," says Kunimitsu. There is that word again, _together._ He checks the bounce of the tennis balls that have been heating as a means of distracting him from Echizen's steady scrutiny of his face. He suddenly wonders which of them truly planned ahead for this.

They warm up lazily, slowly, bantering back and forth with rackets instead of words. The sun begins to peak out behind the clouds, and with it their energy levels rise. Kunimitsu feels his focus sharpen around the boy across the court, until there is only the thwack of feet on clay and ball on racket, and Echizen's sharp stare. He can tell by the way Echizen is over-controlling his movements that he is excited, and he is oddly pleased. A game with Echizen is something special, and always will be. He is not ready to deal with the thought that he may not have many more of them, and tucks that emotion far in the back of his mind. There are too many emotions around Echizen he has done that with already; they will all be easier to deal with, Kunimitsu thinks, once Echizen is gone.

"Hey," calls Echizen across the net. "You're thinking too much, Buchou."

He sends Kunimitsu a high lob, just to keep him on his toes, Kunimitsu thinks. _Pay attention to _me. Kunimitsu returns it with an untouchable smash.

Ryoma huffs.

The feeling swells Kunimitsu's heart then: tennis with Echizen, with _Ryoma._ There is nothing like it, nothing, and he doesn't know if what he feels now is anticipation or loss, excitement or sadness, or everything at once. He doesn't know whether this game was a gift for Ryoma or for himself.

He approaches the net and Echizen meets him there, flushed and smiling. "Buchou," he says. "Is this my present?"

Kunimitsu looks at him. Echizen's face is upturned and still too-young under the brim of his cap �" angular and sharp. His hair is already splayed out at the edges. "If you want it that way, then yes," he responds. Kunimitsu notes the warmth in Echizen's eyes, their deep, indefinable color. It's as impossible to place a name to that particular shade of olive-brown-grey as it is to define Echizen himself by any one word.  
"Is there another present after I win?" Echizen asks. His voice is low, suggestive.

Kunimitsu ignores the parts of himself that want to respond in turn, and answers instead by pushing Echizen's cap down over his forehead. "Call," he says, and spins his racket.

"Che. Smooth," says Echizen, but he keeps his eyes on Kunimitsu instead of the racket.

No one is around on this, the day before Christmas. They have the whole court to themselves, for as long as they want it. They have never played a game in complete isolation, Kunimitsu thinks. They have never been completely alone.

The racket falls. "Let's have a good game," Kunimitsu says. He starts to turn away, but is stopped by Echizen's hand on his arm.

"Hang on, Buchou," Echizen says, fingertips barely brushing his wrist. "What's this?"

Kunimitsu looks down. "Oh," he says, mildly embarrassed. "Fuji needed to buy new ones. He bought me one as a present."

Echizen regards the pale pink monstrosity encircling Kunimitsu's wrist. "It's not your usual color," he says. Then he makes a face. "Do you and Fuji-senpai go shopping together a lot?"

_"No_," Kunimitsu says with undue emphasis. Echizen breaks into an unabashed grin, and slips his fingers beneath the terrycloth. His fingertips are burning pulsepoints against Kunimitsu's wrist, and Kunimitsu is so startled that he lets Ryoma tug the wristband off, fingers sliding down his palm all the way, and onto his own thin wrist.

"If you want it back," Echizen says, "you'll have to take a game."

"What makes you think I'll want it back?" says Kunimitsu.

It looks better on Echizen anyway, he thinks.

He steps away from the net and Echizen prepares to serve. The adrenalin is already rushing through his blood, and the look on Echizen's face tells him he will have a hard fight to win back �" not the wristband, but the feeling of Echizen's skin, warm and smooth, pressed against his own.

  
_The first game_ goes quickly. Ryoma is fluid and sharp and faster than Kunimitsu is prepared for, even after watching him best player after player for the last year. He is an attack of fire and power, and he gets three no-touch aces out of Kunimitsu purely because Kunimitsu wants to test his speed.

The fourth point, however, leads to a fifth, and a sixth, and deuce, and another deuce, and even with the points stretching out before them, they still goes too fast for Kunimitsu. He wants to relish it, the game, every serve; when he reaches out to take the wristband from Ryoma, their fingers brush, and he thinks Ryoma knows exactly how he feels.

_The second game_ moves like lightning. He is pleased to note, on a purely selfish level, that Ryoma doesn't seem ready to have the Zone aimed at him, particularly in its modified form as a spin serve. They have practiced techniques for breaking it, but the technique itself is so powerful after so much evolution that Ryoma can't counter the spin right away. Kunimitsu hopes with the hope borne of long years that he will overcome it, and he comes perilously close, but the game is easily Kunimitsu's.

When they change courts, Ryoma lets his arm bump against Kunimitsu's, wrists touching briefly. He is smiling when he takes his serve.

_The third game_ is fierce. Kunimitsu is not going to waste time now; he has to play as only the best pros can to beat Ryoma, and Ryoma has clearly decided he is going to win. He surprises Kunimitsu with a serve and volley that is followed by attack after attack after attack, and the opening point extends on and on until it has ceased to be about anything but the flex of Ryoma's muscles and the power behind every return. He is beginning to sweat by the time Ryoma drops to the ground neatly after returning a smash with the softest drop shot Kunimitsu has ever seen. Kunimitsu stares at him, regaining his breath and watching the line of Ryoma's collarbones form against the increasingly damp collar of his shirt.

Ryoma gulps down a banana, then eyes Kunimitsu as he joins him for a water break. He takes Kunimitsu's hand and turns his wrist over slowly, ignoring the sweat on Kunimitsu's palm and studying it carefully. This time Kunimitsu reaches up and slides the wristband down over Ryoma's arm. It is loose, a little too big for someone still so small. His arm is thin, but when he grasps hold of it, Kunimitsu can feel a solid sheaf of muscle, power and agility coursing beneath his fingers.

Ryoma watches him without a word, and places his other hand over the wristband when Kunimitsu lets go.

_The fourth game_ is like water. The game washes over Kunimitsu with the wind and the sun and the feel of his first serve; the spin is perfect, and the only thing more perfect is the way Ryoma manages to cut it in half with a slice so sharp it creates a backspin. Only Ryoma could do this, he thinks; only Ryoma would master the Serve Zone so quickly and then use it to turn the originator's power against them. He centers himself and reverses the spin, and from then on there is nothing between them, not even the net �" only the rackets, the ball, and each other, a dizzying orbit of spin and backspin, cut and slice, twist and lunge.

Sun and moon, stars and planets, high tide and low. Kunimitsu doesn't know what point they are on when the ball spins out and touches to earth at last.

_The fifth game_ is an endless rhythm of ball against pavement against racket against pavement, and Kunimitsu is so caught up in it he doesn't know where he ends and the racket in his hand begins. His body feels stretched, powerful, made of air and light. He needs to rest, to lie down, to keep playing, to keep finding the hair-thin flaws in Ryoma's pacing, to keep warring off the shots like bullets that pierce through his armor of spin and control. He is forced to jump, to dive, to leap, to land in the clay and feel his sweat mixing with the court. The smell of it is clean, cold, cheap and unforgettable. It clings to him, to his back and chest, satisfied smudges on everything he owns.

Ryoma's cap is in the dust too. He leaves it there, and the wind settles clay in his hair, sparkling black and gray and stone in the light.

  
_The sixth game_

When Kunimitsu was still young enough to feel the effects of being an only child, he had looked at the world around him, at its spaces and corners, and wished for someone to fill them. Tennis was not the only satisfying thing in his life, but it was the first satisfying thing he had ever wanted to _share._

Meeting Oishi had twigged something inside of him that he had not felt since the first time he held a racket: here was dependability; here was friendship, and love, and concern. It had taken him a very short time to take the measure of Oishi, whose personality had not changed at all in the six years they had known one another; it had taken him longer to accept that there was still a gap between them, and always would be. Oishi had the love of tennis, but not the drive. It was an essential, necessary, unchangeable fact about Oishi that he would never risk more than he ought to. When he chose Kunimitsu as a friend, he had not known all the limits of strength and endurance and wisdom Kunimitsu would ask him to test. His loyalty and Kunimitsu's gratitude were among the things that made their friendship strongest.

Fuji, at the other end of two hard and fast extremes, had provided Kunimitsu with an endless sense of expectation, of adventure lurking around the corner. He gave Kunimitsu a new motivation for playing that had not been present before �" a desire to win against _someone_, to put a name and a face to competition, and not view it purely as a vast and scaleable victory. Tennis was not like climbing the Matterhorn. Kunimitsu had mastered that conquest, against himself, earlier. Fuji was a conquest of brain against brain, of willpower against sheer temptation to failure.

It took Kunimitsu much, much longer to sound out Fuji than it had taken him to sound out Oishi; and an even longer period of denial before accepting the truth. Fuji was all drive for the game, and very little love.

Balanced between these two extremes, Kunimitsu had navigated his way into the center of the tennis team at Seigaku; he had made tennis the center of his life because he wanted it that way, and the presence of the Seigaku regulars around him had only served to remind him, when he allowed himself to be discontent, that something still was missing.

He had no way of knowing, apart from the deep twinge of familiarity, that a scrawny kid with wiry hair and a permanent expression of disdain would fill the gaps. He had deliberately kept himself from viewing Echizen selfishly; there was too much potential there, and too much potential harm to come from trying to let Echizen be what was missing in Tezuka's own tennis. He had clung to this rule stubbornly. He had sacrificed again and again, only for Echizen, and had refused to entertain the idea that each sacrifice was drawing Echizen closer to him, and not just to the game.

For Kunimitsu's sixteenth birthday, Oishi, Eiji, Inui and Fuji had taken him to the top of the mountain where Seigaku spent the night together before he left for rehab. The stars over the city had been brilliant, and the universe had seemed tiny, easily reached; a star-step away.

Just before leaving, they had presented him with a cake, the candles flickering against the night wind; Kunimitsu had taken a breath, and just before blowing them out, Fuji had stopped him.

"Don't make the wish, Tezuka," he had said, eyes glowing against the candlelight, "until you're sure what you want."

"And whatever it is that you want," Oishi had added, his smile warm and cautious, "Make sure you want it for _you_, and not for the rest of us."

Kunimitsu had smiled at them, and nodded, and closed his eyes, and suddenly thought of Echizen. Utterly without understanding it, his chest tightened, and he felt a surge of unnamable emotion �" comfort and unease all at once. He saw Echizen as the captain of Seigaku Junior High tennis; Echizen standing beside him on the podium at Nationals; Echizen standing beside him again at some distant point in the future. He thought of matches played and unplayed, of eyes like hearthcoals blazing with a fire that he, Kunimitsu, had stoked.

For a single indescribable moment, he saw himself, poised in equilibrium, suspended, all alone, in the precarious balance between ambition and love. And then, Echizen: Echizen, looking at him, only at him, and hitting him shots he would gladly spend his whole life learning to return.

He had kept his eyes closed for much longer than he needed to after blowing the candles out. He heard Echizen's voice, telling him he just wasn't there yet. It could have been a taunt or a prayer; in his mind, every day afterwards, it had been a promise.

In the middle of winter, the day before Christmas, two years on, Kunimitsu knows what the promise was.

The promise was this game; this moment. The promise, he thinks as he steps towards the ball for his final zero-shiki, is the way Echizen Ryoma is looking at him right now.

  
When the ball settles, there is dust and silence. He and Ryoma are in each other's gazes, neither of them moving.

After a moment, Ryoma says, his voice raw:

"Buchou."

"Yes?"

"We're going pro now, right?"

"Yes," Kunimitsu says from across the court.

"Together, right?" For the first time all day, for the first time in _years_, there is a moment of pleading, of uncertainty in the expression that wobbles on Ryoma's face.

Kunimitsu wants to go to him, to cup his hand over Ryoma's face, smooth back the sweat-slicked hair from his eyes. He wants to reassure him.

He wants to reassure himself.

He crosses the court in two quick strides, meeting Ryoma at the net. Ryoma's eyes are anxious and determined, and for a moment Kunimitsu has no idea what he is about to do. Then he knows _exactly_ what he is about to do, and in another moment he is leaning down, cutting Ryoma off precisely at the pinnacle of action, the noise of uncertainty still on Ryoma's lips. His mouth is angular, sharp and sweet beneath Kunimitsu's tongue, and Ryoma fits it against Kunimitsu's so urgently the breath leaves him in a rush and he pulls back.

Ryoma looks, for once, as if he will never stop smiling.

"If we're going pro," he says, "We have to play like pros, right?"

Kunimitsu ponders this. "You mean," he says, letting Ryoma sling careless arms around him and slide his head beneath Kunimitsu's chin. "Best of three sets."

"Yeah," says Ryoma, ignoring the net and burrowing against him, a solid, welcoming warmth in the middle of the cold all around them.

"This wristband is really that important to you," says Kunimitsu, smiling and pulling him closer.

Ryoma looks up. "Che," he says, fingers wrapping around Kunimitsu's wrist and staying there. "Among other things."


End file.
